Coral Reefs Suffer Fourth Global Bleaching Event
white in what scientists said on Monday amounted to the fourth global bleaching event in the last three decades.At least 54 countries and territories have experienced mass bleaching among their reefs since February 2023 as climate change warms the ocean's surface waters, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Coral Reef Watch, the world's top coral reef monitoring body.Bleaching is triggered by water temperature anomalies that cause corals to expel the colorful algae living in their tissues. Without the algae's help in delivering nutrients to
Rubymar Sinking Puts Coral Reefs At Risk
water body, receiving few artificial inputs from urban wastewater discharge and aquaculture operations."If you suddenly have a huge amount of fertiliser dumped into the ocean, you're probably going to have some pretty drastic algal blooms," said Derek Manzello, who coordinates the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch.Studies suggest that because corals there are already specially adapted to warm water conditions, they may be more resilient to rising ocean temperatures, requiring greater temperature anomalies to bleach - the process by which corals
NOAA Chooses OPT for Uncrewed Maritime Systems Services
Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) announced the award of three separate Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Multiple-Award Contracts (MAC) from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA has selected OPT as one of several Multiple Award IDIQ contract holders to provide Uncrewed Maritime Systems (UMS) Services to NOAA's Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO), Uncrewed Systems Operation Center (UxSOC). According to OPT, these contracts have the potential to result in millions of dollars of revenue for OPT, and the ordering period is set to span
Philippines Finds Sunken Fuel Tanker 3 Weeks after Spill
;oil slick, according to Filipino marine scientists.Japan has also sent a team of coast guard personnel to help in the cleanup, according to the Philippines' disaster agency, while five U.S. coast guard personnel have arrived to help with the spill response, the U.S. embassy said.The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will work closely with the Philippines to conduct rapid environmental assessments of affected areas and assess needs for ecosystem restoration, the embassy said.The Philippines' environment ministry said it was also in talks with other Southeast Asian countries
Marine Heatwaves Are Sweeping the Seafloor Around North America
Heatwaves unfolding on the bottom of the ocean can be more intense and last longer than those on the sea surface, new research suggests, but such extremes in the deep ocean are often overlooked.A team of scientists with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have conducted the first assessment of marine heatwaves along North America's continental shelves.They found that these bottom heatwaves ranged from 0.5 degrees Celisus to 3C warmer than normal temperatures and could last more than six months — much longer than heatwaves at the surface."We simply don't have a
New System Reduces Underwater Radiated Noise from Ship Propellers
holes allows ships to operate with a more silent propeller.Lars Eikeland, Marine Director, Oscar Propulsion, said, “Underwater radiated noise is one of the most adverse environmental by-products from commercial shipping, yet unlike other forms of marine pollution, there is currently no international legislation in place to prevent or reduce this source of environmental damage.“Increasing noise levels, especially in the low-frequency range, is disorientating marine fauna and disrupting their communication signals, leading to behavioral changes or extinction. We now have a cost-effective
Autonomy: iXblue ramps up DriX USV Production
worldwide, iXblue USV, that was launched back in 2017, has already been acquired, deployed or trialed by several industrial companies and scientific institutes for seabed mapping missions and other subsea positioning operations, including governmental institutions such as the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the Polish Navy, the French Hydrographic Institute (SHOM), or the French Research Institute for Ocean Science (Ifremer), as well as survey contractors and operators in the energy market such as TotalEnergies, Ocean Infinity, Sulmara
Maersk Vessels Transmit Live Weather Data to Meteorologists
Container shipping giant A.P. Moller - Maersk said it has teamed up with National Meteorological Service of Germany, Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) to install automated weather stations enabling a portion of its fleet to transmit live data to help forecast weather and climate.In the largest project of its kind, A.P. Moller - Maersk (Maersk) has installed automated weather stations (AWS) on 50 of its vessels creating a pulsating oceanic web of weather and climate observations. All collected data is transmitted live to the National Meteorological Service of Germany, DWD, supporting their weather forecasts
Why Is It So Hard to Clean Up An Offshore Oil Spill?
, said they saw tar-like balls wash up on the beach. In some cases, dispersant chemicals are used to break up clumps of oil, particularly when a spill is farther offshore and difficult to contain, as was seen in the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010.Since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has developed two new repositories of data to better detect oil spills and other pollution events, as well as where spills are moving.For recovering from a large, contained oil slick, responders can use a specialized ship that pulls alongside the containment
February 2024
